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Classic of the Week: Psycho (1960)

Psycho is a 1960 American thrilleer film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin and Martin Balsam. The story centers on an encounter between embezzler Marion Crane (Leigh) and shy motel worker Norman Bates (Perkins) and its aftereffects, in which a private investigator (Balsam), Marions lover Sam Loomis (Gavin), and her sister Lila (Miles) investigate her disappearance. 

During a Friday afternoon engagement in a Phoenix hotel, real estate secretary Marion Crine and her boyfriend Sam Loomis discuss their inability to get married because of Sam’s debs. Marion returns to work, steals a cash payment of $40,000 entrusted to her for deposit, and drives to Sam’s house in Fairvale, California. She pulls over and falls asleep and is woken up by a police officer the next morning. Her anxious behavior makes him question her reasons and asks to see her license but lets her go. Marion quickly trades her car with Arizona plates for a car with California plates. 

Marion stops for a night at the Bates Motel, located off the main highway, and hides the stolen money inside a newspaper. Owner Norman Bates walks out of a large house ovetrlooking the motel, registars Marion under an alias, and invites her to dinner. After Norman returns to his house, Marion overhears he and his mother arguing over Marion being there. Norman returns with the meal and apologizes for his mother’s anger. He tells her about his hobby as taxidermist, and his mother’s “illness.” Marion decides to drive back to Phoenix in the morning to return the stolen money. As Marion showers, a shadowy figure appears and stabs her. 

This film has its thrills, but at times comes off as a low-budget exploitation film. Many times throughout the film, there is no dialogue, just music, adding to the eerieness and intensity, which isn’t a bad thing, as we can still what’s going on. It is more disturbing than scary. At the time of its release, this movie was considered super scary, but it is very tame by today’s standards. 

Bates is very dark and very slow for its nearly two hour runtime. It has the thrill factor, the intensity, and the fine acting from all of its lead cast, but at times it comes off as cheaply made. It is only slightly entertaining, even though there have several remakes of the film and a TV series version.

This is definitely one of Hitchcock’s more gruesome films even though the gore is pretty mild, and even after learning that the blood in the shower scene was actually chocolate syrup, the scene is still disturbing enough and well done that it could still keep one up at night. Most of the movie takes place at the motel, so not much change of scenery, which may bore some viewers. Though this may not be Hitchcock’s best film in my opinion, it’s not his worst either. The plot may be simple, but the movie is well directed, well acted, and the effects are good too. 

Only Hitchcock could’ve taken such a basic storyline and turned it into what many consider a masterpiece. He knew how to shock and amaze then and his films still do to this day. 18+ 3.5/5 

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Top 150 Greatest Crime Movies and Documentaries

  1. The French Connection – 1971 
  2. Tales of the Grim Sleeper – 2014 
  3. The Usual Susoects – 1995 
  4. The Act of Killing – 2012 
  5. The Big Sleep – 1946 
  6. The Thin Blue Line – 1988 
  7. Pulp Fiction – 1994 
  8. Murder on a Sunday Morning – 2001 
  9. Chinatown – 1974 
  10. O.J.: Made in America – 2016 
  11. Goodfellas – 1990 
  12. The Imposter – 2012 
  13. The Godfather – 1972 
  14. Brother’s Keeper – 1992 
  15. The Godfather Part II – 1974 
  16. Tower – 2016 
  17. Heat – 1995 
  18. Bus 174 – 2002 
  19. Scarface – 1983 
  20. F for Fake – 1973 
  21. Fargo – 1996 
  22. Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art – 2020 
  23. L.A. Confidential – 1997 
  24. Capturing the Friedmans – 2003 
  25. City of God – 2002 
  26. Animal Kingdom – 2010 
  27. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father – 2008 
  28. Trainspotting – 1996 
  29. Lost for Life – 2013 
  30. Rocco and His Brothers – 1960 
  31. Mommy Dead and Dearest – 2017 
  32. Graduation – 2016 
  33. Sour Grapes – 2016 
  34. Mystic River – 2003 
  35. The Central Park Five – 2012 
  36. The Big Risk – 1960 
  37. The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden – 2013 
  38. Grisbi – 1954 
  39. The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz – 2014 
  40. The Last Seduction – 1994 
  41. Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop – 2015 
  42. The Silence of the Lambs – 1991 
  43. The Newburgh Sting – 2014 
  44. The Trial of the Chicago 7 – 2020 
  45. The Iceman Confesses: Secrets of a Mafia Hitman – 2001 
  46. The Departed – 2006 
  47. The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer – 1992 
  48. Widows – 2018 
  49. The Cheshire Murders – 2013 
  50. Sweet Sixteen – 2002 
  51. The Grifters – 1990 
  52. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills – 1996 
  53. Drug War – 2012
  54. Into the Abyss – 2011 
  55. Traffic – 2000
  56. 1971 – 2014 
  57. In the Bedroom – 2001 
  58. The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley – 2019 
  59. Boys Don’t Cry – 1999
  60. Our Father – 2022
  61. Dreamcatcher – 2015 
  62. Murder to Mercy: The Cyntonia Brown Story – 2020
  63. The Murder of Fred Hampton – 1971 
  64. Sophie: A Murder in West Cork – 2021 
  65. The Executioner’s Song – 1982 
  66. The Hunting Ground – 2015 
  67. Serpico – 1973 
  68. WeWork: Or the Making of $47 Billion Unicorn – 2021 
  69. The Fugitive – 1993 
  70. Fyre – 2019 
  71. In Cold Blood – 1967 
  72. Museo – 2018 
  73. Baby God – 2020 
  74. Hell or High Water – 2016 
  75. American Murder: The Family Next Door – 2020 
  76. Band of Outsiders – 1964 
  77. The Tinder Swindler – 2022 
  78. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – 2017 
  79. Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist – 2022 
  80. On the Waterfront – 1954 
  81. Abducted in Plain Sight – 2017 
  82. Assault on Precinct 13 – 1976 
  83. The Girl in the Picture – 2022 
  84. American Hustle – 2013 
  85. 13th – 2016 
  86. United 93 – 2006 
  87. Athlete A – 2020 
  88. A Bright Summer Day – 1991 
  89. Strong Island – 2017 
  90. The Crying Game – 1992 
  91. The Fog of War – 2003 
  92. No Country for Old Men – 2007 
  93. 4 Little Girls – 1997 
  94. Cool Hand Luke – 1967 
  95. Big Men – 2013 
  96. Badlands – 1973 
  97. Time – 2020 
  98. Elevator to the Gallows – 1958 
  99. Let it Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992 – 2017 
  100. Taxi Driver – 1976
  101. I Called Him Morgan – 2016 
  102. Double Indemnity – 1944
  103. Citizenfour – 2014 
  104. Mean Streets – 1973 
  105. Crime + Punishment – 2018 
  106. 12 Angry Men – 1957 
  107. Deliver Us from Evil – 2006 
  108. Rififi – 1955 
  109. Red Roll Red – 2018 
  110. Touch of Evil – 1958 
  111. The Night of the Hunter – 1955 
  112. The Good Nurse – 2022 
  113. My Friend Dahmer – 2017 
  114. Audrie & Daisy – 2016 
  115. L’Argent – 1983 
  116. Charm City – 2018 
  117. Tell Me Who I Am – 2019 
  118. Shoplifters – 2018 
  119. White Boy – 2017 
  120. Why Did You Kill Me? – 2021 
  121. The Red Circle – 1970 
  122. Uncut Gems – 2019 
  123. 16 Shots – 2018 
  124. The Seven Five – 2014 
  125. The Ladykillers – 1955 
  126. The Wolf of Wall Street – 2013 
  127. Pervert Park – 2014 
  128. Team Foxcatcher – 2016 
  129. Foxcatcher – 2014 
  130. Dark Waters – 2019 
  131. A Prophet – 2009 
  132. 3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets – 2015 
  133. Private Violence – 2014 
  134. Bonnie and Clyde – 1967 
  135. The Fear of 13 – 2015 
  136. Gangs of Wasseypur – 2012 
  137. Piccadilly – 1929 
  138. Bernie – 2011 
  139. Man Bites Dog – 1992 
  140. Bowling for Columbine – 2002 
  141. The Phantom – 2021 
  142. Capote – 2005 
  143. Strangers on a Train – 1951 
  144. Collective – 2019 
  145. Icarus – 2017 
  146. To Kill a Mockingbird – 1962 
  147. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room – 2005 
  148. Inside Job – 2010 
  149. Amanda Knox – 2016 
  150. Gomorrah – 2008 
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The Menu (2022)

The Menu is a 2022 American black comedy horror film directed by Mark Mylod and stars Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Holt, Hong Chau, Janet McTeer, Reed Birney, Judith Light, and John Leguizamo. 

Tyler and his companion Margot Mills travel by boat to Hawthorne, an exclusive restaurant owned and operated by celebrity chef Julian Slowik, located on a private island. The other guests attending the dinner are Lilian, a food critic; her editor Ted; wealthy couple Richard and Anne; George, a post-prime movie star amd his personal assistant Felicity; and business partners Soren, Dave, and Bryce. The guests are given a tour of the island by the restaurant maitre d’ Elsa, who notes that Margot was not Tyler’s original guest for the evening. 

The courses and Slowik’s following speeches start to become more distressing and violent. On Slowik’s orders. one staff member kills himself and another cuts off Richard’s finger when he tries to leave the restaurant. The restuarant’s main investor, while strapped to a harness with angel wings is drowned in front of the guests, who later try to flee when Slowik gives them 45 seconds to escape, but are caught by staff and are threatened by Slowik that any attempts to leave will result in more severe consequences. Slowik proclaims all the guest were selected because they make a living off exploting the work of artisans like him, then declares that the night will end with everyone dead. Since Margot’s presence was unplanned, Slowik gives her the choice of dying with either the staff or the guests. 

Slowik turns on Tyler, revealing that he was invited personally and knew all along that the dinner would end with everyone’s death, which infuriates Margot, since he knowling coaxed her to join a trap for dying. It is revealed that Margot is a prostitute named Erin (who had sex with Richard) whom Tyler has hired for the evening, knowing that she would die. Slowik humiliates Tyler further by forcing him to cook (which he does very poorly) in front of everyone, then coaxes Tyler to commit suicide by himself with his necktie in a nearby storeroom. Slowik decides that Erin belongs to the staff and asks her to retrieve a barrel needed for dessert, falsely saying that Elsa forgot it. 

Elsa sneeks into Slowik’s house, which contains a replica of Hawthorne, only to be attacked by Elsa. Erin kills Elsa in self-defense by stabbin her in the neck. After seeing newspaper clippings of Slowik’s past life in barely decorated office, Erin finds a radio, calls for help, and returns ti the restaurant with the barrel. A Coast Guard officer arrives from his boat, bringing hope to the guests, holding Slowik at gunpoint. The officer then reveals himself to be a line cook in disguise and returns to the kitchen. 

Due to Erin’s disloyalty, Slowik now claims that she belongs to the guests, but Erin mocks his dishes and complains that she is still hungry. Having just seen a photo of a young, happy Slowik working at a fast-food restaurant, Erin asks him for a cheeseburger and fries. Moved by her simple request, Slowik prepares the meal to her requests. Erin takes a bite and praises his food, then asks if she can get it “to go.” Slowik packs the food for her and let’s her leave. Erin finds a boat docked nearby and escapes the island. To end the dinner Slowik pays tribute to s’mores by covering the guests in marshmallows and and hats made of chocolate. 

Memembers of the tiny 1% get stuck on an island owned by an amazing, yet insane chef and his equally talented cooks. The guests, aside from Tyler, Richard, and Anne, think they are just going to be tasting some of the most exquisite foods and wines in the world in a beautiful location. That is just a portion of what these guests get at this insanely expepensive restautant on the secluded island of Hawthorne. The food and wine may be considered tasty, but the portions are miniscule and the disturbing “performances” both leave you hungry. You think the first “performance” is just a show and the only one, until every course is followed by one, making it hard to eat, because you instantly lose your appetite. 

This film is considered a black comedy (dark humor), but I don’t understand why. How is someone drowning, someone shooting themselves, and someone having a finger cut off funny? It’s not, it’s disturbing. I didn’t chuckle not once for the almost two hour runtime. I found that the violence was too much and with less of it, this would have been a very enjoyable movie. With a great cast, I was expecting something great, but what I got was just a long movie where people eat, drink, and die. The acting is superb, the clothing is gorgeous, the food is prepared beautifully, the scenery is breathtaking, but the story is weak. The entire film is spent in and around the restaurant, mostly inside, giving the film a claustrophobic, cabin-fever feel, especially since there is no way for guests to leave unless Slowik allows them to. It’s Slowik’s way, no ifs, ands, or buts. 

Slowik is a very powerful and strict man with a booming voice and a stare that feels like it’s slicing you in half. He claps really loud to get everyone’s attention and every time he does, you jump and get angry. He is a brilliant, but twisted man and very unpredictable. He is equal parts intriguing and scary and the character seemed to have be created just for Ralph Fiennes. 

This movie jumps from really slow to really unsetting really fast far too much, making it hard to enjoy. Why this is categorized as a black comedy I don’t understand. Death is not something to laugh at and the deaths in this movie are very obscene. They are over the top gory, where you want to look away, but you still hear the sounds and that’s just as bad. Most of the film is dark too, not just because it’s at night (aside from the begining), but it seems there is hardly any light regardless. Slowik may want a certain ambience in his restaurant and house, but it’s hard to see clearly at times and it’s hard to enjoy the movie overall because of this. 

Normally I enjoy weird movies, but this one was not just weird, but so disquietning, that I found very little enjoyment in it, aside from the fine acting from the main cast and the lovely attire and food arrangements. Had I had known about all the grusome dying beforehand, I would have seen something else altogether, as that is more offensive and perturbing than entertaining. Adults only 2.5/5 

 

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Don’t Worry Darling (2022)

Don’t Worry Darling is a 2022 American psycholigical thriller film directed by Olivia Wilde. The film strars Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Oliva Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, Nick Kroll, and Chris Pine. The movie follows a perfect housewife living in a company town who begins to sense that a sinister secret is kept from its residents by the man who runs it. 

In America duran unspecified time period, Alice and Jack Chambers live in an a perfect 1950s-styled neighborhood in the company town of Victory, California. Every day, the men go to work at Voctory Headquarters out in the surrounding desert while their wives, stay home, to clean, relax, and cook dinner for their husbands. The women are discouraged from asking questions about their husbands’ work and told not to go out to the Headquarters. Margaret has become an outcast after taking her son out into the desert, resulting in her son’s apparent death, although she claims that Victory took him from her as punishment. While attending a party hosted by Frank, Victory’s mysterious founder and leader, Alice sees Margaret’s husband try to give her medication. Later, she sees Frank looking in on her and Jack while they are having sex in Frank’s bedroom. 

One morning, while riding the trolley across town, Alice witnesses a plane crash out in the desert. She rushes to help and comes upon the Headquarters, a small building covered in mirror-like windows. After touching one, she experiences surreal halluncinations before waking up back home later that night. In the following days, she experiences increasingly strange occurrances. She recieves a phone call from Margaret, who claims to have seen the same thing Alice did. Alice goes to see Margaret and witnesses as she cuts her own throat and falls from the roof of her house. Before she can reach Margaret’s body, Alice is dragged away by men red jumpsuits. 

Jack dismisses Alice’s calims and says Margaret simply fell while cleaning the windows and is recovering. The story is further backed up by the town physician Dr. Collins who tries to give Alice prescription drugs. Alice becomes increasingly paranoid and confused, and during a special Victory event, where Frank gives Jack an outstanding promotion, Alice breaks down in the bathroom and comforted by Bunny. Alice tries to explain everything to her, but Bunny reacts furiously, accusing Alice of being selfish. 

Sometime later, Alice and Jack invite and rest of the neighborhood, except Bunny and her husband Dean, to dinner, with Frank and his wife Shelley as special guests. Frank speaks privately with Alice in the kitchen, implying that she is right in her suspicions. Propelled by his confession, she tries to expose him over dinner, instead, Frank gaslights her, making her look deranged to the other guests. In the aftermath, Alices begs Jack for them to leave Victory. 

This film is a lot like The Stepford Wives, and at times seems like nearly a rip-off of the story. Despite the behind the scenes controversy with the cast, the acting is superb by nearly all but Harry Styles, but the story falls flat. It is far too similatr to The Stepford Wives and has a bit of a Desperate Housewives with an A24 twist, although this film was not produced by them. Harry Styles, isn’t a bad actor, he did a great job in his other film from this year My Policeman, but I think the reason he was just okay in this movie is becasue his character is meant to be handsome and empty. Sure he looks the part with his slim suits and perfect features, the camera loves him, but when it comes time for him to be deeply emotional, especially in scenes with Pugh, he doesn’t even compare to her talent in this one or his My Policeman role. 

Much like Stepford, everyday is the same, the men leave for work at the same time with their fancy cars, gorgeous suits and lunchboxes, and go to their jobs at the Victory Project, which they can’t talk about with their wives. The wives spend the days cleaning, vacuuming, scrubbing this and that in their houses and maybe a dance class. There is almost always day drinking. Wilde plays Alice’s next-door neighbor with her cat-eye makeup and Cheshire Cat grin, she brings both mystery and arrogant sexiness and humor to the strange world. 

Also like Stepford, the leaders are all about control: trying to keep mayhem down, which obviously doesn’t really work, because several neighborhood citizens start to get suspicious of the goings onaround them. The movie just gets stranger and stranger and really confusing at times. It seems to jump from one bizarre scenario to another. Some scenes are just plain weird and have no dialogue, only intense and/or creepy music. 

This film, though classified as a physchological thriller, has the cerebral factor, but it is not as thrilling as most thrillers. So many scenes make no sense, like a scene where Alice is wrapping up leftovers with plastic wrap and decides to wrap her head and face too until she can’t breath and then rips it off. These moments are left unexplained until nearly the end, when you realize there really was something in Victory’s water, that it was all about control, mind, body, lifestyle. The leaders of Victory want to turn the residents into human robots. 

The art of the film is flawless,  from the brilliant cinematography from Matthew Libatique is, to the exquisite production design from Katie Byron, to the beautiful costumes from Arianne Phillips, which will probably be the only awards this one will win, because it sure as heck isn’t going to be Best Picture. You don’t learn the truth about Victory until close the end of the movie, but it takes a prolonged twist craziness to get there. Florence Pugh could win Best Actress, but she’d be the only one deserving of an acting award. The plot is nearly unoriginal, the film is pretty slow for much of its runtime and overall, just seems like a mess of weird events, some rather disturbing, filled with an attractive cast in beautiful attire. 18+ 2/5 

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The Good Nurse (2022)

The Good Nurse is a 2022 American drama film starring Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne as two nurses, one who suspects the other of being responsible of a string of patient deaths. The film is based on the 2013 true-crime book of the same name by Charles Graeber about the serial killer Charles Cullen. It was directed by Tobias Lindholm and also stars Nnamdi Asomugha, Kim Dickens, and Noah Emmerich. 

In 1996, a patient admitted to the ICUward of St. Aloysius Hospital, Pennsylvania suffers a seizure. Despite the efforts of the hospital’s staff to resuscitate him, the patient dies. 

Seven years later, in 2003, Amy Loughren, a single mother and nurse working night shifts at Parkfield Memorial Hospital, New Jersey, is introduced to Charles Cullen, an experienced nurse recently hired by the hospital as additional help to her shift. Uknown to the hospital’s administrative staff, Amy is suffering from cardiomyopathy; her lack of health insurance, lack of kin and the fear of retribution shoul her condition be revealed, prompts her to keep it a secret. Despite her condition, she has no other choice but to continue working as a nurse for another four months, in order to obtain health insurance to afford a health transplant. Charlie discorvers her condition and agrees to keep it a secret, also stepping in as a caregiver for her two daughters. 

When Ana Martinez, a septuagenerian patient amitted to Parkfield mysteriously dies, the hospital’s administrative baord contacts the state police, represented by detectives Danny Baldwin and Tim Braun, to inform themof the incident. Nonetheless, the board, led by Linda Garran, the hospital’s risk manager, downplays it, claiming the death was unintentional and that the reason for reporting it was simply to go by health protocol. Regardless, Baldwin remains distrustful of the board, noting that it had acted to report Martinez’s death seven weeks after it had happened. He instantly zeros in on Charlie, noting that he had been convicted of minor charges in 1995. The duo begin interrogating the hospital’s medical staff; when Amy’s turn comes, she notices that insulin had been administered to Martinez, despite her being a non-diabetic. She is further questioned about Charlie’s character. but she speaks up for him. Braun tries to contact the hospitals where Charlie had previously worked at, but none are willing cooperate. Parkfield finally shares its investigation with the police, but Baldwin notices that it is fragmentary, leading him to snap at Garran for her being unprofessional, causing him and Braun to be banned from the hospital. 

When Kelly and Anderson, another ICU patient, suddenly develops an odd cognitive symptoms, Amy discovers that insulin had been given to her. Kelly suffers a seizure and dies, despite Amy’s efforts ro save her. Baldwin and Braun subsequently visit Amy, revealing to her that Charlie had previously worked at nine different hospitals, and that none are willing to talk about him. Baffled, she visitis her friend Lori, a fellow nurse who had previously worked with Charlie at a different hospital. Lori reveals that during Charlie’s tenure, her hospital had dealt with the unfathomable deaths of numerous patients, with the finding of insulin in several of them. 

With Redmayne and Chastain being two of the biggest names in film right now, and this being a true crime film and based on a best-selling book, you’d think this would be a really good movie, but it’s far from it. The story is great, the acting is superb, but the whole film is really slow, to the point of being really boring. The book is anything but boring, I couldn’t put it down when it came out, so when I found out there was to be a movie version starring them (and I’m a huge fan of both), I was expecting it to be outstanding and I was extremely disappointed. Not only is this film very boring, there is very little detail about Cullen’s life growing up, like in the book. 

When you learn about Cullen’s crimes and how the other hospitals basically “covered them up,” it makes you question hospitals, health care, and the law then and now. Despite the slowness of the film, the plot is still bone chilling, especially learning that the horrific acts went on for years and years. This is a dark film and it has the feel of Ozark, which is another Netflix production and maybe it’s a Netflix thing that all new shows and movies and such from them have to look like this, which is a bit annoying and unoriginal and makes you wish someone would turn a light on. 

Eddie Redmayne who plays Charles Cullen, is very soft spoken, except for to Amy’s daughters, which is not like the real Charlie, who is very talkative to most everyone. Ed goes a little broader in the final scesn but, he’s earned it, as for what he has been in up to that part.  Jessica Chastain who plays Amy Loughren, is very shy, like the real Amy. Both Eddie and Jessica are great in their roles, but that may be the only awards this film wins, because I’ll be shocked if it wins Best Picture. 

The film doesn’t go into nearly as much detail about Cullen’s crimes, life, and upbringing, but it does go into a good ammount of detail during the trials. Nnamdi Asomugha does a fine job as Danny Baldwin, Kim Dickens is really good as Linda Garran, and Noah Emmerich does a fine job as Tim Braun. 

Had this film had more light and didn’t feel so Ozark-y or like an Investigative Discovery special or Dateline episode, it would have been more enjoyable. There’s not much gore or violence, which is odd for a crime film. You do see several sick people with scars and peeling skin and the interrogations scenes can be disturbing. There is lots of of cursing, but no drinking, smoking, or sex. Naked dead bodies are shown full frontal. 

Overall, not one of Netflix’s best films. Go for the book, and skip this one. 18+ 2/5 

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Top 75 Films That Deal With Addiction and Recovery

  1. A Star is Born – 2018
  2. Notorious – 1946
  3. Drugstore Cowboy – 1989
  4. When a Man Loves a Woman – 1994
  5. Requiem for a Dream – 2000
  6. Sid & Nancy – 1986
  7. The Hustler – 1961
  8. The Panic in Needle Park – 1971
  9. Ray – 2004
  10. Leaving Las Vegas – 1995
  11. The Basketball Diaries – 1995
  12. Phantom Thread – 2017
  13. Shame – 2011
  14. Rocketman – 2019
  15. Uncut Gems – 2019
  16. Ben is Back – 2018
  17. The Man With the Golden Arm – 1955
  18. Clean & Sober – 1988
  19. Don Jon – 2013
  20. Half Nelson – 2006
  21. Flight – 2012
  22. Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot – 2018
  23. Traffic – 2000
  24. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – 1998
  25. Another Round – 2020
  26. Rachel Getting Married – 2008
  27. Beautiful Boy – 2018
  28. 6 Balloons – 2018
  29. Factotum – 2005
  30. Crazy Heart – 2009
  31. Rush – 1991
  32. Betty – 1992
  33. Trainspotting – 1996
  34. Gia – 1998
  35. Tender Mercies – 1983
  36. Barfly – 1987
  37. The Lost Weekend – 1945
  38. Days of Wine and Roses – 1962
  39. The Rose – 1979
  40. The Way Back – 2020
  41. Christiane F. – 1981
  42. Pay it Forward – 2000
  43. Basquiat – 1996
  44. Lenny – 1974
  45. The Sound of Metal – 2019
  46. Gridlock’d – 1997
  47. Judy – 2019
  48. Once Were Warriors – 1994
  49. Her Smell – 2018
  50. Nil By Mouth – 1997
  51. Clockers – 1995
  52. Down to the Bone – 2004
  53. Tarnation – 2003
  54. Jesus’ Son – 1999
  55. Devdas – 2002
  56. Midnight Cowboy – 1969
  57. Silver Linings Playbook – 2012
  58. Gone Baby Gone – 2007
  59. I’ll Cry Tomorrow – 1955
  60. The Gambler – 1974
  61. Bigger Than Life – 1956
  62. Easy Rider – 1969
  63. Julia – 2008
  64. Affliction – 1997
  65. Destroyer – 2018
  66. Long Day’s Journey into Night – 1962
  67. Drunken Angel – 1948
  68. Smashed – 2012
  69. A Star is Born – 1954
  70. A Star is Born – 1937
  71. I Walk the Line – 2005
  72. The Wolf of Wall Street – 2013
  73. My Left Foot – 1989
  74. Oslo, August 31st – 2011
  75. The Shining – 1980

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Greatest Summertime Movies of All Time

  1. The Seven Year itch – 1955
  2. Vicky Christina Barcelona – 2008
  3. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants – 2005
  4. Mamma Mia! – 2008
  5. Stand by Me – 1986
  6. Little Miss Sunshine – 2006
  7. The Notebook – 2004
  8. Crooklyn – 1994
  9. Real Women Have Curves – 2002
  10. Caddyshack – 1980
  11. National Lampoon’s Vacation – 1983
  12. Grease – 1978
  13. The Graduate – 1967
  14. Jaws – 1975
  15. Beaches – 1988
  16. Do the Right Thing – 1989
  17. The River Wild – 1994
  18. The Parent Trap – 1961
  19. The Parent Trap – 1998
  20. The Bridges of Madison County – 1995
  21. Summertime – 1955
  22. Summer Stock – 1950
  23. 500 Days of Summer – 2009
  24. Speed – 1994
  25. Thelma & Louise – 1991
  26. E.T. – 1982
  27. Clueless – 1995
  28. Dirty Dancing – 1987
  29. Point Break – 1991
  30. American Graffiti – 1973
  31. The Goonies – 1985
  32. What About Bob? – 1991
  33. Dazed and Confused – 1993
  34. The Endless Summer – 1966
  35. The Sandlot – 1993
  36. In the Heights – 2021
  37. Palm Springs – 2020
  38. King Richard – 2021
  39. The Talented Mr. Ripley – 1999
  40. Dope – 2015
  41. Lilo & Stitch – 2002
  42. Adventureland – 2009
  43. Sylvie’s Love – 2020
  44. Tomboy – 2011
  45. Moonrise Kingdom – 2012
  46. Everybody Wants Some! – 2016
  47. Luca – 2021
  48. Crazy Rich Asians – 2018
  49. Something’s Gotta Give – 2003
  50. Mystic Pizza – 1988
  51. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar – 2021
  52. The Way Way Back – 2013
  53. Summer of ’42 – 1971
  54. Pauline at the Beach – 1983
  55. Breaking Away – 1979
  56. Moana – 2016
  57. Soul Surfer – 2011
  58. Muppet Treasure Island – 1996
  59. Finding Nemo – 2003
  60. Charlotte’s Web – 1973
  61. Say Anything… – 1989
  62. The Kings of Summer – 2013
  63. Miss Juneteenth – 2020
  64. From Here to Eternity – 1953
  65. Shirkers – 2019
  66. Before Sunrise – 1995
  67. Weekend at Bernie’s – 1989
  68. Monsoon Wedding – 2001
  69. My Summer of Love – 2004
  70. In the Good Old Summertime – 1949
  71. Porgy and Bess – 1959
  72. Beach Rats – 2017
  73. The Florida Project – 2017
  74. Kiss Me Kate – 1953
  75. The Little Mermaid – 1989
  76. Anything Goes – 1956
  77. Damn Yankees – 1958
  78. The Music Man – 1962
  79. Carousel – 1956
  80. An Affair to Remember – 1957
  81. King Creole – 1958
  82. The Long Hot Summer – 1958
  83. Suddenly Last Summer – 1959
  84. A Summer Place – 1959
  85. Gidget – 1959
  86. The Whales of August – 1987
  87. A League of Their Own – 1992
  88. Howard’s End – 1992
  89. Cha Cha Real Smooth – 2022
  90. Dog Day Afternoon – 1975
  91. Roman Holiday – 1953
  92. Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte – 1964
  93. On Golden Pond – 1981
  94. Summer With Monika – 1953
  95. Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday – 1953
  96. Smiles of a Summer Night – 1955
  97. The Talk of the Town – 1942
  98. Early Summer – 1951
  99. Almost Famous – 2000
  100. Summer Interlude – 1951
Posted on by chloetalksfilm

Nope (2022)

Nope is a 2022 American science fiction film directed by Jordan Peele and stars Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, and Brandon Perea

In 1998 , on the soundstage for the sitcom Gordy’s Home, the titular chimpanzee animal actor attacks and kills its human co-stars after being startled by the pop of a balloon. Child actor Ricky “Jupe” Park hides under the table and is unharmed, though scared. The chimp finds Jupe and extends a hand before being shot dead by authorites. 

In the present day, ranch owner Otis Haywood Sr. trains and handles horses for film productions. When he is killed by a nickel through the eye that falls unexplainably, his children Otis Jr. and Emerald inherit the ranch. O.J. tries to keep the business going and to uphold his father’s legacy, while Em looks for fame and fortune in Hollywood. The Haywoods claim that unnamed jockey in “Plate 626” from Eadweard Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion series of photographs was their ancestor. 

Six months later while, while filming a commercial with well known cinematographer Antlers Holst, a horse reacts violently when the crew startles it and the Haywoods are fired from the project. The ranch’s financial problems have forced OJ to sell horses to a grown up Jupe, who owns and operates the nearby Jupiter’s Claim, a smal western theme park, where he uses the story of Gordy’s Home killing for profit. Jupe offers to buy the Haywoods’ ranch, which Em encourages OJ to accept. That night Haywoods notice their electricity flickering and their horses disappearing and reacting brutally to an unknown presence. They discover that a UFO shaped like flying saucer has been sucking up their horses and spitting out any unwanted debris, which caused their father’s death. 

Seeking wealth and fame, OJ and Em decide to document the evidence of the UFO’s existence and they obtain Fry’s Electronics employee Angel Torresto set up surveillance cameras as they bait it with a pretend horse. Jupe introduces a live show at Jupiter’s Claim and plans to have a horse as bait to coax the UFO to come out, having fed it the horses he bought from the Haywoods, in front of a paying audience. This UFO is not a spaceship but predatory creature that eats anthing that looks directly at it.  

This film has a Spielbergian feel too it, much like his film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but not nearly as good. To me this is one of Peele’s weaker films. Most of the movie is spent on the creature in the sky, waiting for it, watching it, escaping from it and only a portion is actually spent on the horses and the human characters. The creature goes from looking like a giant UFO, to a giant kite, to a ginormous kaleioscope, which is neat, but entire scenes of it, is a waste of time. We get it,  we’re amazed, move on. 

The acting is great from Daniel Kaluuya (OJ) and Steve Yeun (Jupe), Keke Palmer was given a bad role, as she is really good actress and deserves better, but her character Emerald was nothing more than an annoying stereotype of a young African American tomboy wanting fame and fortune. 

This film had little flow and made little sense and you never learn why the sky creature was after that town. It is very intense but also focuses way too much on the creature and very little on the human characters, although a good bit is focused on the horses. I like science fiction and thriller films but they both must have what films need a begining, middle and end. This one has a begining, but the middle and end are combined. Had the middle and end been seperated, I would have enjoyed it more. This took Spielberg style sci-fi and just made it worse. The last about hlaf the film was spent trying to get away from this UFO looking alien creature thing and not about learning anything about it and why it wants to destroy that town eat certain living things.They just want it come out and then run from it, which makes no sense and they are just wanting it to suck them up. 

This movie is really fast paced and keeps you on the edge of your seat and because of these things, it is better to see it in theater. The intensity, violence and language in this movie are not appropiate for yound kids. Just the creature alone would give them nightmares. 

I am disappointed I spent over two hours of my life watching this movie that had very little story to it other than horses, but the alien thing is never explained about at all, not why they’re on earth, where they came from, why that town? Nothing. Jordan Peele has said that the creature represents Hollywood and the main (human) characters are Hollywood stars and the alien going after the Haywoods and Jupe represents how Hollywood mistreats African Americans and Asians. Which upon learning that, it made me like this movie a little bit more, but still not a whole lot more. 

The cinematography, scenery and special effects are amazing, i just wish there had been less alien or whatever that thing is more about the characters and their lives. It might as well have been callled Jordan Peele’s Alien. But all of those good qualities dont make the film that much better, just more entertaining. 18+ 3.5/5 

Posted on by chloetalksfilm

Beast (2022)

Beast is a 2022 American survival thriller film directed by Balasar Kormakor. The films stars Idris Elba, Iyana Halley, Leah Sava Jeffries, and Sharlto Copley. 

A recently widowed husband returns to South Africa where he first met his wife, on a trip with his daughters to a game reserve managed by an old family friend and wildlife biologist. Soon a vicious wild lion, wanting human flesh, begins attacking them and killing everyone it finds. 

This film’s plot is simple, yet this movie is extremely intense and at times, quite disturbing. You see characters get attacked, shot at, stabbed, and even killed. Violence comes mostly from the ferocious lion that wants to kill every human human he finds, as he thinks they are all out kill his pride and other animals, or as we call them poachers. You do see some poachers shoot and kill several wild animals and drag off their bodies, which is disturbing (and illegal), and poaching is still an ongoing problem in the world. Young viewers will be too disturbed for the movie. 

Idris Elba does a great job as Dr. Nate Samuels, though his American could use some work on, as it fades to American to barely British (his real accent). Sharlto Copley does a good, not great job as Martin Battles. The film doesn’t have much of a before story, not telling much about the daughters’ mother’s death, or their parents’ marriage, except that they had divorced or seperated and first met in South Africa. The movie jumps right into the poaching and trying to survive from the lion and that’s pretty much the rest of the film, which though intense, it wasn’t that interesting and needed a lot more story, because alone, it is so one dimensional. Also this film is rather short at an hour and thirty-three minutes and I was expecting a film like this one to be at least two hours long. 

Had this one more of a storyline, it would have been more interesting and not just plain gory and nail-bitingly distressful. Although the acting is really good and the scenery is beautiful, that doesn’t make up for the weakness of this movie. I found myself on the edge of my seat nearly the wole time, but also wanting more and thinking at the end of this one, “That’s it?” 

Would I watch this one again? Maybe if it came on TV and there was nothing else on, but it would never be a first choice that’s for sure. This one is thrilling for sure, but that’s it. So much more plot is needed to make this an outstanding film. Don’t waste your time or money on this movie in theater. It leaves to too much out to make you scratch your head in the end. 18+ 2.5/5